Review the budget line-by-line for waste. We should be investing taxpayer dollars in efforts and programs with proven records of success and reallocating or cutting programs that do not work or whose benefits are not worth their cost. Secretary of Defense Gates has unveiled an unprecedented effort to reform defense contracting, and the President has launched a line-by-line review of the federal budget to pinpoint what programs works and what needs to be terminated or reduced in scope.

Community service: To raise money for the school, Obama chose not to hold a bake sale privatizingexisting programs (such as social security) but instead undertook to reallocate funds not needed elsewhere. The faculty was particularly keen on this student's commitment, given his prior experience in organizing for communities. But Obama under-performed even his predecessor by proposing a trim "less ambitious than the hit list former president George W. Bush produced last year, targeting 151 programs for $34 billion in savings." Either he never really applied himself to the task, or he regretted making--and wanted to back-out from--the commitment. Grade: F.

Summary: Obama's overall progress--grade point average: 0.5, an F at this stage of the semester. This is particularly disappointing for a student aspiring to be an Econ major.

Note for the permanent record: I have spoken to the student about the fact that spending's up, the deficit's multiplying, and his line-by-line term paper taking the lazy approach of labeling most everything necessary and efficient. I cautioned him about the limits to "voting yourself rich."